But this conception of the order as essentially an instrument of social education requires to be balanced by another, viz., its anticlericalism. Its founder professed that at the time when the idea of the order was taking shape in his mind he was profoundly influenced by the persecutions which honest men of unorthodox sentiments had been compelled to suffer on account of their views.[355] Considerations growing out of his own personal embarrassments and imagined peril on account of his clashings with the Jesuits were also admittedly weighty in his thought.[356] It is therefore to be regarded as a substantial element in his purpose to forge a weapon against the Jesuits, and in a larger sense to create a league defensive and offensive against all the enemies of free thought.[357]
Accordingly, the expression of utterances hostile to Christian dogmas was early heard within the assemblies of the order,[358] and only the difficulty experienced in working out the supreme grade of the order inhibited Weishaupt’s intention of converting it into a council of war to circumvent and overwhelm the advocates of supernaturalism and the enemies of reason.[359] The pure religion of Christ, which, doctrinally conceived, had degenerated into asceticism and, from the institutional standpoint,[360] had become a school of fanaticism and intolerance, was pronounced a doctrine of reason, converted into a religion for no other purpose than to make it more efficacious.[361] To love God and one’s neighbor was to follow in the way of redemption which Jesus of Nazareth, the grand master of the Illuminati, marked out as constituting the sole road which leads to liberty.[362]
The objects of the order were such as to appeal to the discontented elements in a country suffering from intellectual stagnation due to ecclesiastical domination.[363] Despite this fact, its growth during the first four years of its existence was anything but rapid. By that time four centers of activity, in addition to Ingolstadt, had been established, and a total of possibly sixty members recruited.[364] While its visionary founder considered that a solid basis for encouragement had been laid,[365] as a matter of fact at the termination of the period just indicated the organization was seriously threatened with failure. Fundamental weaknesses had developed from within. Chief among these was the tension which existed almost from the first between Weishaupt and the men whom he associated with him in the supreme direction of the affairs of the order.[366] The thirst for domination, which was native to the soul of Weishaupt, converted the order into a despotism against which men who had been taught by their leader that they shared with him the innermost secrets of the organization, rebelled. The result was the constant breaking-out of a spirit of insubordination and a series of quarrels between the founder and his associates which rendered the future progress of the order very precarious.[367] The extreme poverty of the organization constituted another serious obstacle to its rapid growth. With a view to demonstrating the genuine disinterestedness of the society, an effort had been made from the beginning to emphasize the financial interests of the order as little as possible.[368] The rules of the organization were far from burdensome in this regard, and it is by no means surprising that many of the proposed measures of the leaders in the interests of a more extensive and effective propaganda proved abortive for the very practical reason that funds were not available to carry them into effect.[369]
A decidedly new turn in the wheel of fortune came some time within the compass of the year 1780,[370] with the enrollment of Baron Adolf Franz Friederich Knigge[371] as a member.
In the recruiting of this prominent North German diplomat Weishaupt and his associates found the resourceful and influential ally for which the organization had waited, a man endowed with a genius for organization and so widely and favorably connected that the order was able to reap an immense advantage from the prestige which his membership bestowed upon it. Two weighty consequences promptly followed as the result of Knigge’s advent into the order. The long-sought higher grades were worked out, and an alliance between the Illuminati and Freemasonry was effected.[372]
Such was the confidence which Knigge’s presence immediately inspired in Weishaupt and his associates that they hailed with enthusiasm his admission to the order, and gladly abandoned to him the task of perfecting the system, their own impotence for which they had been forced to admit.[373] Manifesting a zeal and competency which fully justified the high regard of his brethren, Knigge threw himself into the task of elaborating and rendering compact and coherent the childish ideas of organization which Weishaupt had evolved.
The general plan of the order was so shaped as to throw the various grades or ranks into three principal classes.[374] To the first class were to belong the grades Minerval and Illuminatus Minor; to the second,[375] (1) the usual three first grades of Masonry, Apprentice, Fellow, and Master, (2) Illuminatus Major, and (3) Illuminatus Dirigens, or Scottish Knight; and to the third class were reserved the Higher Mysteries, including (a) the Lesser Mysteries, made up of the ranks of Priest and Prince, and (b) the Greater Mysteries, comprising the ranks of Magus and King.[376]
A detailed description of the various grades of Knigge’s system would far outrun the reader’s interest and patience.[377] The present writer therefore will content himself with making such comments as seem best suited to supply a general idea of the revised system.
The grade Novice (a part of the system only in a preparatory sense) was left unchanged by Knigge, save for the addition of a printed communication to be put into the hands of all new recruits, advising them that the Order of the Illuminati stands over against all other forms of contemporary Freemasonry as the one type not degenerate, and as such alone able to restore the craft to its ancient splendor.[378] The grade Minerval was reproduced as respects its statutes but greatly elaborated in its ceremonies under the influence of Masonic usages with which Knigge was familiar.[379] The grade Illuminatus Minor was likewise left identical with Weishaupt’s redaction, save in unimportant particulars as to special duties and in the working-out and explanation of its symbolism.[380]